The great blue hills which
fringed it away in the far distance were for him the ends of the world,
and if he could go there some day, he would surely look over and
find--what? The thought staggered him, and his imagination would not, or
could not, construct for him what was at the other side. All day, often,
he had lain stretched full length upon the moor, watching the great
white clouds sailing past, seeing himself sometimes sitting astride
them, proudly surveying, like God, the whole world. At times it was so
real that he bounded to his feet when by some misadventure he slipped
from the back of the cloud. He listened to the songs of larks, the cries
of curlews and lapwings and all the other moorland birds, and became as
familiar with each of them as they were with one another.
But this going to school was a break in his freedom, and it stirred him
strangely. He felt already that he would rather not go to school. He had
always been happy before, and he did not know what lay ahead.
In the schoolroom that morning, Robert was called out by the
headmistress to her desk, and while she was jotting down in her register
particulars as to his age, etc.
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